From: Kevin Ballard <kevin@sb.org>
Date: Wed, 08 Dec 2010 23:27:41 GMT
Subject: Re: [BUG] git-add doesn't apply filepatterns to tracked files
Message-ID: <3A1EAFC5-8D24-4E4F-B1BB-B1E153964EB0@sb.org>
In-Reply-To: <7vipz3j228.fsf@alter.siamese.dyndns.org>

On Dec 8, 2010, at 3:07 PM, Junio C Hamano wrote:

> Kevin Ballard <kevin@sb.org> writes:
> 
>> It seems that git-add doesn't match filepatterns against tracked files,
> 
> This is an issue known for a long time (and the one I had been bitching
> about every time I had a chance).  Tracked ones obey diff-index pathspec
> rules (leading path match only) while untracked ones use gitignore
> pathspec rules.

If I understand you correctly, you're saying tracked files don't understand
patterns because git-diff-index doesn't handle patterns? Is there some reason
that git-diff-index doesn't support patterns? I tried a handful of commands
and here's the pattern-matching behavior I saw:

git-add: patterns match untracked, but not tracked
git-rm: patterns match tracked files, command doesn't work on untracked
git-status: patterns match untracked, but not tracked
git-ls-files: patterns match tracked, command doesn't work on untracked
git-ls-tree: no pattern support
git-check-attr: no pattern support

Documentation is a bit sporadic here as well. git-add lists <filepattern>
in its synopsis and options and defines this as supporting
"fileglobs". No mention whatsoever of the tracked file limitation.
git-rm only lists <file> in synopsis/options, but does document this
as being a "fileglob". git-status uses <pathspec> in the synopsis, and
doesn't even document this in the options. It only makes a reference
in the description, calling it "paths". git-ls-files calls it <file>
in both synopsis and options, and makes no mention whatsoever of globs.
git-ls-tree uses <path> in both synopsis/options, but explicitly claims
that this is really a pattern in the option documentation. Curious,
given its complete lack of pattern matching. git-check-attr uses
<list-of-paths> in the synopsis, with no mention in the options.

Overall, there's a few problems here. The first is that git-add and
git-ls-files apply the git-diff-index rules for tracked files, but
apply actual patterns to untracked files. The second is the documentation
is inconsistent, both in the name of the argument, and in making it
clear which commands actually support patterns (plus the documentation
for git-ls-tree is explicitly wrong about pattern support). The third
is we're inconsistent in which commands support patterns at all.

-Kevin Ballard